Head Scarf

France has agonized for years about whether and how to discourage Islamic girls from wearing the hijab, or head scarf, in public schools -- something more and more students have taken to doing, claiming religious obligation, fashion or simply that it's a matter of individual rights. It is a practice that has grown more confrontational as European and American relations with the Islamic world have worsened.

Teachers at the Louis-Lomiere school said today they will strike for 15 minutes each morning until a Muslim fellow faculty member agrees to leave her head scarf at home. The walkouts, to begin Thursday, are directed at Marie-Christine Benmecherene, 35, who began wearing a head scarf to class in early October after three schoolgirls in Creil sparked a national debate on whether Islamic scarfs violate school policies of secularism.

A Washington, D.C.-based Islamic advocacy group has helped a Florida woman gain the right to wear the Islamic headdress for women while at work. Fatimah Herman, a Muslim worker with National Maintenance Inc. in Crestview, Fla., was sent home in early September and told she violated company dress policy by refusing to remove her head scarf while at work, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Kuwait's only female national politician survived an ouster attempt by conservative lawmakers who accused her of mismanagement and endangering traditional religious values. Hundreds of women applauded and ululated in the galleries as parliament voted 27 to 19, with two abstentions, against the impeachment of Education Minister Nouria Subeih. Subeih, wearing a black pantsuit and lacking the Muslim head scarf nearly all women wear in Kuwait, stood and waved to the crowds, while lawmakers shook her hand.

Re "Woman's lawsuit accuses Disneyland of bias," Aug. 14 If I had broken as many rules at my job as Imane Boudlal did at hers with Disneyland Resort, I would have been fired. There would have been no offer of any other position within my company. Disneyland is a theme park, with employees dressing as "cast members" of a fantasy world. Her supervisors even offered a specially designed scarf (which needed corporate approval). This is bordering on absurd. If Walt Disney Co. settles by paying her off, I may consider not renewing the annual pass I have had for more years than I can count.

Disneyland has agreed to allow an intern to wear a company-designed head covering at work, according to a Muslim rights group that intervened after the woman was told she would have to work in the stockroom. The Chicago woman was hired as a vacation planner after a phone interview, but when she arrived at Disney for her internship orientation, company representatives asked her why she had not mentioned her hijab, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The woman was told she would have to take a position with less guest interaction, working in the stockroom until a "customized uniform" could be made, according to the group.

LONDON - Just five months after she was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan's Swat Valley, apparently for defying a ban on girls' education, Malala Yousafzai returned to school, this time in the safer confines of central England. On her first day in Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, the teen, who has attracted international attention for her quiet defiance, issued a statement celebrating her accomplishment and expressing concern for others. “I am excited that today I have achieved my dream of going back to school," she said.

Thousands of mourners marched in Alexandria behind the coffin of the "martyr of the head scarf" -- a pregnant Muslim woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom in front of her young son. Her body was brought to her hometown for burial. Egyptians were outraged by the attack and saw the low-key German response as an example of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment. Her husband was critically wounded in the attack in Dresden when he tried to intervene and was also stabbed and accidentally shot by court security.

A 29-year-old Muslim woman sued San Bernardino County and its sheriff Wednesday, alleging that deputies violated her rights by forcing her to remove the head scarf she wears because of her religious beliefs. The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California filed the complaint on behalf of Jameelah Medina in U.S.